Keywords Studios

Last updated

Keywords Studios plc
FormerlyKeywords International Limited (1998–2013)
Company type Public
ISIN GB00BBQ38507
Industry Video games
Founded1998;26 years ago (1998)
Founders
  • Giorgio Guastalla
  • Teresa Luppino
Headquarters,
Ireland
Key people
RevenueIncrease2.svg€780.445 million [1]  (2023)
Decrease2.svg€46.830 million [1]  (2023)
Decrease2.svg€19.952 million [1]  (2023)
Total assets Increase2.svg€599.039 million [1]  (2023)
Total equity Increase2.svg€599.039 million [1]  (2023)
Number of employees
Increase2.svg 12,340 [1]  (2023)
Subsidiaries See § Operations
Website keywordsstudios.com

Keywords Studios plc is an Irish video game industry services company based in Leopardstown. Founded in 1998 by Giorgio Guastalla and Teresa Luppino, the company initially provided localisation services for business software before transitioning to the video game industry. Andrew Day replaced Guastalla as the chief executive officer in 2009 and the company completed its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange in 2013. Since then, Keywords Studios has acquired several other companies, including Blindlight, Climax Studios, D3T, GameSim, Heavy Iron Studios, High Voltage Software, Smoking Gun Interactive, Tantalus Media, and Wicked Workshop.

Contents

History

Giorgio Guastalla, an Italian-Irish businessman who had previously worked for Microsoft's Dublin office, founded Keywords Studios in 1998 with his wife, Teresa Luppino. [2] [3] [4] The company was established in Leopardstown (a suburb of Dublin) under the name Keywords International and originally provided localisation services for business software. [2] [5] [6] A regional office in Rome was established in 2001. [7]

Starting in 2004, Keywords International became incrementally involved with the video game industry. [4] [7] Andrew Day, a Johannesburg native and long-time friend of Guastalla, joined the company in March 2009 at Guastalla's request and became its chief executive officer (CEO). [4] [7] At this time, Keywords International had 50 employees and revenues of €3.5 million. [8] Day perceived the supplier side in the video game market as highly fragmented and intended to turn Keywords International into a "one-stop shop" for various stages of video game development. [8] He further aimed to change the company's significant reliance on a single client. [4] Day instituted a five-year plan that shifted the company's focus entirely towards video games and was to lead to a flotation in 2014. [4] The previously major client significantly reduced its business with Keywords International in 2010. [9] Further regional offices were opened in Tokyo in December 2009, in Montreal in 2010, and in Seattle in 2012. [7]

In June 2013, Keywords International announced its intent to float and sell 56% of its shares on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. [2] By this time, the company had 120 employees and a pre-tax profit of €2.74 million on revenues of €14.34 million. [10] In this process, Keywords Studios Limited was incorporated in the United Kingdom. On 8 July, it was renamed Keywords Studios plc and wholly acquired Keywords International. [11] [12] Numis Securities served as the financial adviser and ran the offer, [13] and Keywords Studios floated on 12 July, raising £28 million. [14] Ross Graham was subsequently brought on as the chairman. [15] Before the flotation, PEQ Holdings (a company associated with Guastalla, Giacomo Duranti, and Marco De Sanctis) owned 75.1% of the shares, with Day holding the remaining 24.9%. The flotation reduced PEQ Holdings's ownership to 29.9% and Day's to 13.2%. Cazenove Capital Management acquired 12% of the company, alongside other investments by Artemis and Legal & General. [16]

With the initial public offering completed, Day envisioned an acquisition-based approach to grow Keywords Studios. [6] Liquid Violet, a provider of voice production services, was its first purchase in January 2014. [17] At the end of 2016, Keywords Studios had 2,600 employees, including 120 at its Dublin headquarters. [8] The acquisition of VMC in October 2017 added 1,300 employees to Keywords Studios's headcount. According to Davy Group, this acquisition turned Keywords Studios into the largest provider of functionality quality assurance. [8] In July 2018, the company announced the creation of Keywords Ventures, a venture capital fund aimed at supporting startups. Keywords Studios acquired 45% of AppSecTest as the first under this fund. [18] In the same month, Igor Efremov was hired as the chief creative officer and Andrew Brown as the chief marketing officer. [19] Jon Hauck was brought on as Keywords Studios's chief financial officer (CFO) in November 2019, replacing David Broderick after he had announced his resignation. [20] At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Day and Hauck took a 20% pay cut. [21] Staff criticised the company's handling of the pandemic, stating that the operations had remained largely unchanged despite health safety concerns. [22] In May of that year, the company raised £100 million to acquire firms weakened by the pandemic. [23]

In January 2021, Keywords Studios hired Sonia Lashand Sedler as its chief operating officer (COO). [24] Citing health reasons, Day took a temporary leave in March 2021, with Hauck and Sedler becoming joint interim CEOs. In June, Keywords Studios announced Day's impending retirement and that he had formally stepped down as the CEO and a member of the board of directors, only remaining on the board in an advisory role for six months. [25] Bertrand Bodson, the former chief digital officer for Novartis, succeeded Day on December 1, 2021. [26] In January 2022, Guastalla stepped down as a non-executive director of Keywords Studios to focus on his other businesses. [27] He was followed shortly by Sedler, who left the company in March 2022, citing personal reasons. [28] Graham unexpectedly died in March 2023. As he had been due to retire later that month, the non-executive director Don Robert had already been designated as his replacement. [15] Hauck succeeded Sedler as COO on 1 July 2023, while Robert Kingston was hired as the CFO. Kingston had previously acted in that role for the UK and Ireland division of Flutter Entertainment. [29]

Alongside the companies Active Fence, Take This, and Modulate, Keywords Studios established the Gaming Safety Coalition in March 2024 to improve mental health practices in online gaming. [30] In May 2024, Keywords Studios announced it would accept a takeover offer from the Swedish investment firm EQT AB of £25.50 in cash per share, a total of £2.2 billion. The offer was a 73% premium of the previous share price of £14.70, which rose to £23.78 in the wake of the announcement. [31] [32] The final deal for £24.50 per share was announced in July and is pending shareholder approval. [33] In the proposal, EQT would acquire 51% of the company, while Temasek and CPP Investments would each obtain 24.5%. [34]

Corporate affairs

Keywords Studios is headquartered at Whelan House in the South County Business Park of Leopardstown. [35] In September 2017, the company leased the entire ground floor and parts of the first and lower ground floors of Whelan House for €422,722. [36] Italicatessen, a food import business founded by Guastalla and Luppino in 2002, provides catering services for Keywords Studios's headquarters. [3] As of 2023, Keywords Studios employs 12,340 people. [1]

Operations

Day stated that not releasing products under the Keywords Studios name contributes to it staying "under the radar". [6] The company's businesses are divided into seven segments: art, engineering, functional testing, audio recording, translation, localisation, and player support. [8]

List of acquisitions by Keywords Studios
NameAcquiredBusinessRef(s).
Liquid VioletJanuary 2014Voice production [17]
Babel MediaFebruary 2014Localisation and localisation testing [37]
Binari SonoriMay 2014Localisation [38]
Lakshya DigitalOctober 2014Art services [39]
Alchemic DreamJanuary 2015Customer care [40]
Reverb LocalizaçãoJanuary 2015Localisation [40]
Kite TeamJuly 2015 (50%; remainder acquired in April 2016)Localisation [41] [42]
Liquid DevelopmentAugust 2015Art services [43]
Ankama Asia March 2016Operations support [44]
Synthesis GroupApril 2016Localisation and audio [45]
Mindwalk StudiosMay 2016Art services [46]
Volta CreationJuly 2016Visual development and art services [47]
Player ResearchOctober 2016Consultation and user testing [48]
Enzyme Testing LabsNovember 2016Localisation and quality assurance [49]
Sonox Audio SolutionsDecember 2016Localisation [50]
SpovFebruary 2017Art services [51] [52]
XLOCMay 2017Web-based content management; XLOC platform [53] [54]
GameSim May 2017Development [55]
Red HotMay 2017Art services [56]
La Marque RoseAugust 2017Audio recording [57]
AsrecAugust 2017Audio recording [57]
Dune SoundAugust 2017Audio recording [57]
Around the WordAugust 2017Localisation [57]
D3T October 2017Development [58]
VMCOctober 2017Localisation and quality assurance [59]
SperasoftDecember 2017Development [60]
Localizadora Latam (LOLA)December 2017Audio localisation [61] [62]
Maximal StudioMarch 2018Voice-over recording [63]
Cord WorldwideApril 2018Music branding [63]
Laced MusicApril 2018Record label [63]
Fire Without SmokeMay 2018Development [64]
Blindlight June 2018Production services [65]
Snowed In StudiosJuly 2018Development [66]
Yokozuna DataJuly 2018Predictive analytics [67]
Studio GoboAugust 2018Development [68]
Electric SquareAugust 2018Technical services [68]
Sound LabSeptember 2018Immersive entertainment [69]
The TrailerFarmSeptember 2018Trailer production [69]
Sunny Side UpDecember 2018Marketing [70]
GetSocialFebruary 2019User acquisition [71]
WizcorpApril 2019Development [72] [73]
Descriptive Video WorksJune 2019Audio descriptions [74]
TV+SynchronSeptember 2019Voice-over recording [75]
IchiDecember 2019Creative and marketing [76]
KantanMTDecember 2019 Machine translations [76]
SyllabesDecember 2019Audio recording [76]
Marching CubeJanuary 2020Development [7]
Coconut LizardJune 2020Development [77]
Maverick MediaAugust 2020Creative and marketing [78]
Heavy Iron Studios September 2020Development [79]
G-Net MediaNovember 2020Marketing [80]
High Voltage Software December 2020Development [81]
Indigo PearlDecember 2020 Public relations [82]
JinglebellDecember 2020Audio recording [82]
Tantalus Media March 2021Development [83]
Climax Studios April 2021Development [84]
AMCAugust 2021Art studio [85]
Waste CreativeDecember 2021Creative production services [86]
Wicked Witch December 2021Development [86]
Forgotten Empires June 2022Development [87]
Mighty GamesAugust 2022Development [88]
Smoking Gun Interactive September 2022Development [89]
HelpshiftDecember 2022Customer support [90]
LabComDecember 2022Public relations [91]
Fortyseven CommunicationsJanuary 2023Public relations [92]
Digital Media ManagementMarch 2023Marketing [93]
Hardsuit Labs May 2023Development [94]
The Multiplayer GroupDecember 2023Development [95]

Accolades

At the 2019 Technology Ireland Awards, Keywords Studios received the "company of the year" and "outstanding achievement in international growth" awards. [96]

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